Wolf River and the African Queen

One thing about summer is that it flies. There is so much to write about but so little time to actually sit down and prattle away. When one is living the dream, a hunger just can't do it all. It used to be there were bad days in the summer, days when it rained or days overcast and gloomy, days when it was just not comfortable to be outside, days to sit comfortable in the warm sofa and write.

Now it seems every day has something to offer, weeding in the garden, a biking like a wild man through the rolling countryside, tinkering motors of antiquity and fiddling wild Irish tunes as a way of rattling ones brain. It may be that as we get older it seems more important to get after it, to grab every opportunity, but sitting quietly is fine, I am just not good at it. I don't knit, I do read, but mostly I like to do things and that does include fishing.

In the last few years fishing has become more of an wild-ass adventure, not just an evening outing on Lime Lake (which I do). Often there is a journey involved not unlike the African Queen and the crawling leeches, the blistering heat, but usually not the glowing young woman over heated from toil and lust. We still do dream but Ann all to often is disgusted with the hardship and blatant profanity that is necessary for fisherman of our stature. We are in our minds the most interesting people in the world, battered, crippled and often drooling in our own incompetence

 Recently Dennis, Jeff, Ann  and I decided to hit the little Wolf where we had caught nice Small Mouth Bass on a number of occasions while leisurely drifting through quiet waters.

But right out of the gate, things went wrong, not unusual in our world, and we found the river had been the unintended victim of high winds. There were trees down all over the once open river, and they crossed over the entire span. To top it off, the fish apparently didn't like the situation even though we tried to see the carnage as offering structure. They were very unkind to us.

Our casts were unanswered except for Jeff's nice 8 pound Northern. We stopped at one dead fall and headed around over a sand bar only to be massacred by blood lusting mosquitoes and then unceremoniously nipped by nettles. It was a sad sight. Old people struggling on what became known as a Baton Death Paddle. Fortunately, no one fell face in or ass in as has happened before much to our camera's demise.

To top it off, we had forgotten how far the paddle was and the dark had ventured in by the time we hit a landing, death was our motivator, and hunger pushed our ribs through our tattered clothing as we dreamed of cold beer. I was reminded it is the bad times you remember, for from them come the stories.